Browsing by study line "Humanistinen opintosuunta"

This thesis examines the stories of three Arab Queer individuals in Finland in relation to universal LGBT/Queer rights discourse. The main aim of this study is to explore more critically the implications of the so-called universal LGBT/Queer rights discourse on Arab queer individuals’ experiences and narratives in Finland through their own stories as a medium of sense making about the world. Secondly, and pertaining to the first objective, this research intends to inquire into the possible contributions of a methodology grounded in local concepts and categories of knowledge production in studying an under-researched topic as such. Inspired by conversational method in Indigenous research as discussed in literature by Kovach (2010), hakaya (stories) were used in this research as a means of gathering knowledge. Additionally, art-based methods were included as part of this research in order to engage the participants’ stories from the offset and to foster reflexivity from my end as a researcher throughout the research process. The research material was analysed in conversation with Edward Said’s (1978) work on Orientalism, as well as the contributions of several scholars on Decolonial Queering. Through a comprehensive analysis of data gathered via thematic analysis, artistic reflexivity, as well as follow-up conversations, three common themes were identified: a) pressure to assimilate; b) exclusion/exoticising inclusion; and c) feeling unsafe. The findings in this thesis demonstrate a clear link with previous literature discussed, indicating a perpetual issue when it comes to stories of Queer Arabs being mediated and filtered to feed dominant narratives informed by a Western lens which disregard the subjectivity and distinctive experiences of Arab queer individuals. This points to the necessity as well as the inherent challenge of bringing queerness into conversation with decolonisation to pave the way for the past, present, and future to be reimagined, as well as narrated differently. By utilising a combination of conversational and art-based research methods, this study also reveals that a methodology grounded in local methods of knowledge production—like hakaya or storytelling in the case of this specific thesis—in research on an under-researched topic as such can promote more equal participation and collaboration, yielding more nuanced findings as a result. Moreover, this paper concludes that utilising Art-Based methods can play a substantial role in the process of bringing forth the question of ‘what are the voices that have not been archived?’ and in fostering the visibility of historically marginalised and silenced voices. These findings will help to inform future research in the area and provide a better understanding of the complex dynamics at play when it comes to research on sexuality.

In recent decades, the visibility of Finland has been increasing in Japan. It might even be almost impossible not to notice “Finland” in everyday life. -Products with Moomin characters, trendy Finnish style saunas, Finnish words used in brand or product names and Finnish themed facilities. But what kind of themes spring to mind when Finland is mentioned? What images are attached to Finland, or how is Finland talked about in everyday life? This study investigates what Japanese people post about Finland and what kind of representations of Finland appear on Japanese Twitter, as well as how the Japanese society is represented through these discussions. For the data collection, the search word and command “フィンランド min_faves: 1000” was used, in order to find tweets that included the Japanese word for Finland, フィンランド, and which had accumulated more than 1000 likes. The final data amounted to 364 tweets posted on Twitter between September 16th 2020 and November 7th 2022. The analysis was conducted in two separate phases; in the first phase, themes of the tweets which appeared in the data were identified by using qualitative content analysis (QCA), and in the second phase, representation analysis was conducted together with QCA in order to find out how Finland is represented on Japanese Twitter, and what kind of meanings are attached to Finland. The analysis identified the following themes that often appear in the tweets about Finland: Nature, travel destination, history, national defence, brands, art, language, customs, education as social welfare, school, work-life balance, gender equality, and mindset. The representations of Finland found in the data were: The ideal model for Japan (a model for a fair society/ a model for a happier life), magical and consumable Finland, a small but brave and a strong country, and questioning “the dream country Finland”. The analysis also found that the images of Finland are constructed to fit the narratives of Japanese people. “The dream country Finland” was created by Japanese people’s fantasies and ideals and it was used to criticize some aspects of the Japanese society: the Japanese government, politics, social welfare, working style, national defence, among others.

This thesis looks to find what types of narrative themes emerged during the 2010s from articles published in The Finnish American Reporter related to the topics of preservation and celebration in the Finnish North American context. Additionally, this thesis examines what types of activities were featured as acts of preservation and celebration of Finnish culture and which of these acts were seen as success stories or failures. To get acquainted with the topic, this thesis introduces academic research related to the concepts of identity, ethnicity, heritage, preservation of heritage, celebration of heritage, immigration, and Americanization. These topics are further complemented by looking into what types of research has been conducted on Finns in North America prior to this thesis, and by telling the history of the Finnish community in North America. The main dataset for this thesis consists of 370 feature articles published in The Finnish American Reporter between January 2010 and December 2019. This study takes a qualitative approach and qualitative content analysis was used during the data collection process to identify relevant articles. These articles were then analyzed with narrative analysis tools in order to find themes that developed across the articles. This study finds that teamwork and collaboration was an essential theme across all the articles, which made the preservation and celebration of Finnishness possible. The variety of Finnish communities, experiences and activities were also carrying themes throughout all the articles. Several different Finnish cultural activities examined here were featured as success stories, but failures were also present in the articles. Many of the articles demonstrated Finnish communities and organizations fighting hard against the decline of Finnishness in North America.